


Shot Through the Heart

by redleather



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: Epistolary, First Time, M/M, POV First Person, everyone loves Horatio Hornblower, some incredibly flowery language from a man who isn't all that flowery, squint and you'll miss Horatio/William Bush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:48:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28147863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redleather/pseuds/redleather
Summary: The greatest private victory of my naval career has been won.I have had him. Horatio
Relationships: Horatio Hornblower/Edward Pellew
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Shot Through the Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saklani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saklani/gifts).



February 15th, 18...

_Nevermind. I shall destroy this after writing it, but write it I must. I’ll say it into the aether, to the depths of my soul, which surely is damned. No matter, I overflow so with the joy of it that I can’t countenance punishment beyond this world._

The greatest private victory of my naval career has been won.

I have had him. Horatio. Not Admiral Lord Nelson

I can hardly believe it. My hand fumbles over my pen in my fervour. I may not be able to keep him, but that does not matter. I have had him, and the mere memory shall sustain me for one thousand lonely nights at sea without him. 

He may go back to Bush, he may not. I could see it in the Lieutenant’s eyes, the growing regard. A mirror to my own no doubt. We have all fallen madly in love with him. You can’t help but be drawn in. Young Kennedy may have fallen on his sword for him, and Clayton did in his time too; must have to take his place in the duel with that blackguard Simpson.

No indeed, he may go back to William Bush, because he is loyal… But he was loyal to me first, and I found myself not above using every manoeuvre, every ruse of war to win him.

I thought I had made a mistake, I thought it was too late for me. By the time I had realised it, had corrected my thinking, I imagined the chance at him had passed me by. It is not like me not to strike at what I want. No one could say that of my Captaincy, my tactics. I have enriched myself and those under my command with how willing I am to go to battle, save in this.

You see I didn’t rate him at all at first. Our first conversation made me think he was hot headed and impudent. I felt he spoke out of turn. He started late, a midshipman at seventeen years of age. Recommendations from Captain Keene aside, there were midshipmen of thirteen years who could run rings around him in terms of seamanship. And respected though he had been, Keene was old and couldn’t maintain discipline, and he knew it. Keene had let matters of order among the ranks fall to disarray, and I felt he had been indulged in ill discipline.

I told him that I did not listen to gossip, nor would I hold ill will against him based on hearsay, but in truth, I did a small amount. I told him what I tell all young men in his position, what I truly fervently believe; I judge a man by his conduct, by his actions. 

However, I bestowed upon him the charge of the rabble Simpson had overseen, thinking he would either rise to the occasion or flounder, and believing I would see the latter. For I heard it spoke that Clayton was a good man, and I believed the rumours that Horatio had cowardly allowed Clayton to take his place in the duel with Simpson.

I thought privately that I couldn’t forgive him for that. But I was wrong, oh how I was wrong. I should have known for sure when I heard Simpson recount the final moments of Captain Keene. His put on show of grief made me bilious, but there were more important matters at that moment.

Since then, I have just spent quite some time defending him against the old guard, the type who are jealous of his swift rise, the ones who never truly believed that Sawyer was out of his wits. Hammond wanted him hanged. I believed him though. He is young and idealistic but he's never been a liar. He was always honourable, to a fault, and it inspires the men to see behave honourably. He’ll make an admirable Commander and Captain of the newly minted HMS Retribution.

He confided in me that he had had the ignoble start of being seasick while in port at Spitshead, on his first posting aboard the fateful Justinian. He told me that Simpson had had the run of the place, and had used them ill. I had never been more glad that I shot that craven coward in the heart. Bowles took leave to commend the accuracy of my shot, and I felt a swell of satisfaction that may have been ungentlemanly, despite the justice of my actions.

I should have had him then, when he came to me after the duel with Simpson, his life freshly in my hands. That’s when I should have done it. No hesitation, but I needed him to prove himself to me, a capable seaman and leader, for the sake of all our lives, and he wanted to prove himself so ardently. My God, if I could have seen my own face as he approached me on the deck, the naked admiration must have been visceral. I feigned a lack of awareness of his approach until he addressed himself to me. I could barely hold myself back from embracing him.

I could see it on his face, the pride that he had pleased me, that he was acknowledged for his hard work, that the men now trusted him… that I now trusted him. Oh if only I had secured him then he could have been more surely mine all this time and going forward! 

But no matter, I have had him, and it was sweeter than wine.

And speaking of wine, it made a beautiful flush to his cheeks as we toasted his success, a delicate rosy shade to match his sweet lips. Fresh from the death of Kennedy, the ordeal of the court martial, his recent elevation in rank, I could see his feelings tossing about like a ship unmoored in a storm. He looked to me as his lighthouse, his safe harbour. I always expected much of him, but that never seemed to burden him, instead giving him certainty. After hours of conversation, more wine and food in my quarters, I could see him ease. He smiled more, held himself less stiffly, told me tales of himself and almost childish secrets, as I related my old war stories. Then gradually, I let my gaze meet his and held more steadily, and shared with him more intimately of myself, and I knew I had him enthralled.

When I touched my lips to his cheek, he let out a small gasp and clutched at my clothes. I was instantly jolted and inflamed, like hotshot to my main mast. The scent of his neck, the feeling of his chestnut curls as I threaded my fingers through his hair, it almost undid me there. I put my hands to his warm, ivory flesh, carved marble like heroes from an antique land. I silenced his tongue with kisses, I tried to brand myself into his skin, I stroked his silken manhood ‘til he spent himself again and again.

I had his mouth, I had his glorious thighs, I bestowed every pleasure in my arsenal upon him, and he gave up his body and his pleasure to me as his gasped and groaned my name wetly against my lips.

Afterwards I held him, and ran my hands all over the creamy expanse of his back, over where Simpson would have stuck him, if I hadn’t put a bullet in his cowardly black heart.

I’m a man of war, and I shall never know peace, nor do I seek it. I have had him, and I shall never know peace from it, nor would I ever seek it.

It is the sweetest victory.

Commodore Sir Edward Pellew

_Burn this._

**Author's Note:**

> Hi Saklani! Happy Yuletide! I hope you like this. Happy ending, but no action adventure, unless you count in the pants department. I haven't ever written in this fandom, and last time I was reading it was 15 years ago. So of course I was like 'what the hell, I can totally offer this for Yuletide, what's the chances I'll actually get it?'. Hubris, thy name is me. Anyway, hope this is a bright spot for you in what otherwise has been a weird and awful year. xxx


End file.
